Feelings (One Shot)
by SandsWinchester
Summary: "Imagine that you really like Dean, and it hurt you seeing him with a different girl at night, and Sam knows and try to comfort you the best he can."


We were on a typical routine hunt, trying to track down some rogue vampires on a killing spree. So here we were in this godforsaken bar, with the intention of gaining some clue as to who they were. Usually vampires tend to be the rowdy, loud kind of group hell bent on flamboyant debauchery. Obviously, in a town like this, that wouldn't be too hard to spot, and after that it would be just a short process of retracing them back to their little old nest and chopping their murderous heads off.

So yes, like I said, we were on a typical routine hunt.

Sam sat next to me nursing a beer but not really drinking it. Neither of us were the kind to actually drink on the job. Then again, it sometimes felt like we were always on the job. Dean was trying to chat up the bartender, a gorgeous busty blonde, with his usual charming self. Why couldn't Sam be the one to do that? If Dean did indeed have to do the inquiring, why in God's name did I have to be here and witness it with my own two eyes?

"If looks could kill…" Sam trailed off. I could hear the laughter in his voice.

"What?" I turned to look at him. _Pretend, Y/N. Pretend you have no clue what he is talking about._

"Oh, you know, just nothing."

I didn't push him. Sam had suspected of my feelings for Dean for quite some time, even though he never really said anything about it. How could he not know? He was my best friend after all. He and I had gotten so close that I would even go as far as to say he's like a brother to me. Dean, on the other hand, inspired the least brotherly feelings anyone possibly could. I knew I liked him. I knew I really, really liked him, except I wouldn't do anything about it. We knew what this life was like. We knew how rare it would be to even find something to care about and not have it ripped away from us in the blink of an eye. Besides, Dean was the kind to get it on with anything in a skirt and I was never the casual 'dating' type. So yes, I swallowed my feelings, pretended they didn't exist and went on hunting with the Winchester. It was better this way. At least that's what I told myself.

"You know," Sam said very casually, "You could just tell him how you feel and put yourself out of this misery."

I stared at him as if he had grown another head. "Seriously? And then what? We would go back to how things were after he laughs at me? No thank you, Sam."

"Y/N, he is not going to laugh at you. What if he feels the same way? If that's the case, trust me, you would want to know," Sam insisted.

I laughed to myself. "I'd trust you with my life," I said trying to smile about it all, "But not about this."

"Not about what?" asked a very familiar voice that had begun to even invade my dreams at one point.

I turned around to face him. I was fairly certain that I looked like a doe caught in front of headlight, the headlights being his bright green eyed gaze.

I cleared my throat. "Oh, nothing important," I said with a nonchalant shrug and I could see Sam roll his eyes at me from the corner of my eyes. "So did you find out what we were looking for?"

I was saved from that for the moment, and we discreetly planned the next move for the hunt. I was glad for the reprieve.

[Lapse in time]

The Impala pulled up in front of the same bar we had patronized the previous night.

I looked at Dean. "I thought we were going to get something to eat, not waste ourselves to oblivion."

"Oh buckle up, wuss," he chuckled. "There's food here too. And I think we all deserve a break after ridding this world of a little bit more evil, don't you?"

I folded my hands in front of me in what Sam always called the defensive pouting pose. "Right, of course, this is your idea of a well deserved break."

"That's right," he said getting out and slamming the door of the Impala with a cheeky grin. "Burgers, booze and babes!"

I watched him walk in and sighed to myself in resignation. Of course, he'd get drunk tonight. Of course, he'd find himself some random girl, most likely that busty blonde bartender from before, and leave with her. I didn't know how much more of this I could truly endure. I mean, how long can one watch the person they loved be with woman after woman right before your eyes without going completely insane?

I looked up from my thoughts to find Sam looking at me. I could see the pity in his eyes, and mingled in that gaze was also compassion. "Stop looking at me like that, you giraffe!" I giggled, trying to force some joviality into the moment.

"We could go back to the motel if you want, Y/N," he said gently.

The offer was sweet, and I had half the mind to take it. But what would I do then? I'd just go back to the motel only to lie awake till I hear Dean coming back from his drunken debauchery and go to sleep crying. I did not need that, not tonight. "Nah," I shrugged it off. "Let's go get drunk. He's not the only one who gets to have fun, right Sammy?"

That of course turned out to be the worst idea I had in quite a long time. A short while later, I was too drunk, too depressed and most definitely too vocal about my thoughts. "I mean what's wrong with me Sam? Tell me. You know you can tell me, right?"

Sam, as always, was sober even though he had drunk pretty much the same amount I had. "Nothing, Y/N. You're great. You're beautiful, smart, and most of all, you care about him enough to put up with his shit."

"Exactly!" I agreed with a fist to the table. "You're right! I'm perfect. Which means something's wrong with him," I gasped. Then naturally, my eyes found their way to him. There he was flirting with the bartender just like I had predicted. For a very brief moment, our eyes connected and I saw concern flicker across his. At least, I thought I saw that. It must have been a figment of my very wishful imagination because he simply turned away and went right back to flirting with the blonde. "That's not true, Sammy," I whined. "There's nothing wrong with him. He's perfect. He's perfect down to the very last cell and that's probably why he would never feel the same way I do." And with that solemn, despairing declaration, I slumped on to the table.

"I'm going to get you some water," I heard Sam laugh and get up.

I was humming 'She Will Be Loved' by Maroon 5 to myself when I heard the chair scrape back warning me that Sam was back. "Is Dean gone yet?" I asked without even looking up. Right now the design on the little wooden table was far more interesting than Sam's look of pity. "I bet he already left with that bimbo. We should probably go to the motel then."

"Actually you know what?" I rambled on, "I do not want to go back! Not yet! I don't want to hear him get it on with her. I don't want to hear him get it on with _anyone_. He's mine, Sammy. He should be. He would be if he could get his stupid little head out of his ass and see how perfect we could be together!"

"So my head is in my ass?" asked a voice that definitely did not belong to Sam.

"Dean!" I piped up instantly. "How long have you been here?"

"Long enough," he grinned. I looked around suspiciously at the bar to see where Sam was. "If you're looking for Sam, he went to the men's room," he said as if he read my very thoughts. "So you were saying?" he prompted.

"What?" I squeaked. "I wasn't saying anything!" Except, he and I both knew I had said way more than I ever should have. I had said more than he wanted to hear.

"As I remember, you were telling me in quite vivid detail that you didn't want me to leave with anyone." I groaned. Ignoring me, he continued right on with an annoyingly cheeky grin on his face. "You also said that I was yours and something along the lines of me getting my head out of my ass?"

He was laughing at me. This was exactly what I had hoped to avoid in the first place. Him laughing at my feelings was worse than watching him flirt his way into other women's beds. This was much, much worse. I glared hoping to swipe that smirk right off his face.

"Well, Y/N, I didn't know we were open," he said, the smirk still very much in place. "If I knew, I wouldn't be here flirting with anyone. I'd be back in the motel room with you."

In my drunken haze, it took a couple of seconds for the meaning of his words to truly sink in. He was suggesting that he wanted something to happen between us too…except I knew it was not in the way I truly wanted. He wanted a meaningless entanglement whereas to me, it would mean everything. I couldn't help the tears that sprung to my eyes.

"Y/N," he whispered. The smirk was gone, replaced by an intense gaze bearing into mine.

I laughed trying to downplay my natural reaction. "I don't want to sleep with you! Are you crazy? Why would I ever want to sleep with you?" I asked him, still laughing. Maybe, if I joked about it all, he'd forget this entire thing to be of any serious nature.

Except he wasn't laughing with me. His intense gaze still bore into me, and now it was mingled with confusion and anger. "Then what were you saying just a few seconds before? About how you were jealous of the other girls…"

"Oh that? That's just a little joke between me and Sam. You took that seriously?" I laughed some more. The lies kept piling up. How easier it would have been to just tell him the truth but I couldn't do it. I couldn't bear it all to him only to have him crush it all with an ignorant laugh.

"Hmm. Right. You and Sam. Of course," he muttered.

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" I jabbed his arm with righteous indignation.

He looked at where I had hit him and then back at me. "So that's it then, right? You have feelings for Sam, and you were talking about liking me to make him jealous or something?" He closed his eyes in what seemed to me like regret, except I couldn't really understand what he had to be regretful about.

It would have been so easy to agree. I could have just let him believe that I had feelings for Sam with a simple 'yes' and he would have let this whole conversation be. Yet I couldn't do it. A little white lie here and there was within my code, but I couldn't lie to Dean. I couldn't lie to him about this.

Maybe his unexplainable look of regret had something to do with it too. Maybe, just maybe, it gave me the tiniest bit of hope that he didn't exactly like the idea of me falling for his little brother. Which is probably why I said, "I don't have feelings for your brother." He looked up at me questioningly. "Dean, the only person I have feelings for is you."

I waited for him to react but all he did was stare at me. It wasn't quite disbelief but more like surprise. "I have feelings for you," I continued. "I don't want to watch you get into bed with other women, that's true, but I also don't want to just hook up with you. I mean I have _feelings _for you, Dean. I can't just hook up with you and stay friends with you or something."

Again, I waited for him to say something, anything at all. He didn't. Abruptly, he stood up. "I have to go. There's something I have to do somewhere," he muttered and rushed out before I could even wrap my head around what was happening.

I was still staring at the empty space left in his wake when Sam walked in with a bottle of water. "What's wrong?" he asked, noticing my dumbstruck face. "What happened?"

I slowly looked up at him. "The world ended, that's what happened," I told him solemnly.

"I wasn't gone for that long, was I?" he laughed. Then just as swiftly, he turned serious. "What happened, Y/N?"

His familial mockery I could have withstood, but faced with his kindness, the tears silently welled and rolled down my cheek. "I did what you said, Sammy. You were wrong, though. And I was right. He laughed in my face and left."

"Dean?" Sam asked as if to clarify. I nodded. "But Y/N, he told me…"he trailed off.

I wasn't really listening either. The silent tears were turning into sobs and I desperately wanted to cry at my stupidity. "Don't mind me," I sniffled. "My face is just leaking."

"Come on, let's get you home," he said, enveloping me in a big Sammy hug.

I didn't remember reaching the motel. I did vaguely remember that Dean wasn't really there, and that made me cry even more knowing that right after I confessed how I truly felt about him, he went and hooked up with some random woman. And soon enough, crying I went to sleep.

A little while later, something woke me in the middle of the night. I couldn't pinpoint what it was but my hand swiped under my pillow to reach for the gun that wasn't there.

"Looking for this?"

I looked up to see Dean holding my gun in his hand. "Knowing your reflexes, I had to remove it before waking you up in the middle of the night," he said like it was the most obvious thing to do.

"Yeah," I squinted up at him. "About that. What are you doing here, Dean?" I looked over at my phone to check the time. "It's freaking three in the morning."

"I had to talk to you, Y/N," he said kneeling down in front of my bed to bring his face to the same level as mine. As I stared up at him in confusion and mild distrust, he continued, "I shouldn't have just taken off like that. Sam pretty much gave me hell for it. But I had to take a walk. I had to think."

By this time, I was very much awake. My gaze softened along with my resolve to stay indifferent towards him. This always seemed to happen around Dean Winchester. I always found myself turning to mush in his presence. "Thinking about what?" I asked even though a part of me was too afraid to ask.

He reached out and I warily watched as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. All this time I had fantasized about moments just like that but now that it was happening, I couldn't figure out why. "I had to think about what to do, Y/N. I mean while I thought it was just me falling for you, it wasn't that much of a big deal but knowing you feel the same way about me, made things get serious a lot faster than I could have imagined. I mean, Sam told me you felt the same but I never believed him. I never dared to hope that someone like you could ever love someone like me."

"Sam told you?" I shrieked.

"Seriously," he raised a brow at me. "I'm trying to declare my intentions towards you and that's your biggest concern?"

I couldn't help but giggle. This conversation was going down a path that I could be happy about. "Sorry," I apologized sheepishly. "Carry on. So what _are _your intentions towards me, Dean Winchester?"

He smiled. It wasn't a cheeky grin or an all-knowing smirk. It was a genuine smile, a rarity for this Winchester. "I'm in love with you, Y/N." My heart skipped a beat with that declaration. I couldn't believe this was happening. I almost had the mind to pinch myself but I resisted. "I am in love with you and it terrifies me," he continued. "I've lost too much. I've given too much. I'm scared to love you and lose you too but it's all too late now. I'm already in love with you. It's been driving me crazy for months!"

"Months?" It was my turn to raise a disbelieving eyebrow at him. "Is that why you screwed everything in a skirt all the way from the East Coast to the West?"

"A part of me wanted to make you jealous. And another part of me wanted to fight it, Y/N, because I had never felt anything like this. It's scary."

I reached out to touch his face. The feel of him was real. This _was _really happening. He leaned into my touch as if he had been craving it. If what he was saying it was indeed true, maybe he had. "Dean," I whispered, with every intention of putting him out of his misery. "I love you too."

He smiled that special little smile of his. "Yeah, I realize that now." He looked at me with all the promise in the world. "I can't promise you a perfect life, Y/N. Heck! We are both hunters. Our lives are everything but perfect. But I promise you this…no matter what happens, I will always fight for you. I will always love you no matter what."

I grinned up at him. "A promise huh? Is the word of a Winchester worth anything?"

He grinned back. "This word is," he said solemnly.

I reached up to him and laid a gentle kiss on his lips. "Okay, then it's good enough for me."


End file.
